The Most Secretive Car Collection In The World Just Leaked And It’s Truly Insane

It’s almost hard to believe that approximately 7,000 rare cars are simply rotting away in a tropical climate, but that’s essentially the story of the world’s biggest car collection, belonging to the 29th Sultan of Brunei. It’s a notoriously secretive automotive candyland, like Wonka’s chocolate factory for fans of ’90s exotic machinery.

Technically amassed by Prince Jefri Bolkiah and his son, these cars ended up the property of the state thanks to settling over an embezzlement scheme. However, beyond that, it’s hard to know exactly what happened to the bulk of the collection. We do know there are several one-off Ferraris and Bentleys in it, but that’s about it.

Well, while we don’t know much about the collection in its current state, allegedly 23-year-old photos of the collection have recently surfaced on Instagram thanks to account @stopthegatekeepingloris, and the mix of cars is both weirder and more glorious than you could ever imagine.

 

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Let’s start things off with something that’s familiar to a lot of us — a Suburban, GM’s full-sized family hauler. However, this isn’t just any Chevrolet Suburban because it sports Pininfarina badges on its fenders. Yes, that Pininfarina, the styling house historically responsible for most Ferraris. Yes, beneath the camouflaged exterior, you’ll find a cabin trimmed entirely in chocolate and sage leather, but that’s only where the insanity starts.

See, this Suburban is right-hand-drive, but the dashboard isn’t shared at all with the Holden Suburban sold in Australia. Also, despite being a GMT400, it has a floor-mounted shifter. What’s more, the controls are all kinds of weird. The climate control panel is straight out of an early model, meaning this could very well be a heavily worked-over pre-facelift GMT400 Suburban. Needless to say, this is a Holy Grail, and it’s far from the only one in the Brunei collection.

Speaking of weird, let’s talk about this Ferrari 456. The Royal Family was known to be a good client of Ferrari’s, but this grey automatic grand tourer doesn’t seem that much different than any other 456, apart from a weird protrusion from the roof. Is this a V12 coupe with a periscope? Well, not quite.

Popping the trunk only raises more questions. It’s safe to say that luggage space is now essentially nonexistent, and that we’re looking at an absolute buttload of cables, but what do all the computers in the trunk actually do? Maybe a look in the cabin will help.

Wow, that’s a whole litany of screens. In case you haven’t worked it out, this Ferrari 456 has full-on night vision. Crazier still? It’s one of two 456s photographed in the collection to be equipped with night vision, and both are relatively normal as far as Brunei 456s go.

How about a Ferrari 456 sedan? The collection has at least three of these coachbuilt four-door Ferraris, one in red, and two in green. Oh, and if that isn’t practical enough for you, how about a Ferrari 456 GT wagon?

While the silver Ferrari 456 GT Venice has been released out in the wild, this yellow one, along with a black one and a green one, are likely still locked up in the Royal Family’s collection. It’s the sort of coachbuilding that kept the exotic car industry afloat in the 1990s, but the customized 456s didn’t stop at just sedans, wagons, and tweaked coupes.

That’s because directly beside that yellow 456 wagon, at least in these pictures, sits a 456 Spyder. While not the most elegant Ferrari ever produced, the Brunei Royal Family evidently liked it enough to order at least four of them, one in yellow, one in red, one in silver, and one in green.

By now, it seems that unusual colors is a common theme of this collection, such as these F40s in white and silver. Photos also exist of a matte black F40 with comfy Testarossa seats and a green F40 in the same complex, but that’s not nearly as wild as what happens when the Sultan went bowling with the bumpers down.

You’ve heard of F40s and F50s, but what about F90s? Targa-topped creations on Testarossa mechanicals with faired-in rear wheels, creations for the Royal Family alone. These are all a case of letting Pininfarina run wild and pitch a rejected concept car to the Sultan, which makes you wonder, what concept car actually made the motor show stand?

Ah yes, the Ferrari Mythos, a Testarossa-based drop-top built for the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show. The Sultan is known to have commissioned three Mythos examples, one in red, one in black, and one in purple, and they’re all accounted for in this leak. Of course, this purple one doesn’t appear to be a cabriolet, judging by the glossy sheen of its roof, which makes it all the more interesting.

Oh, and then there’s the Ferrari FX, another Testarossa-based creation, featuring the engine from the F512M and a seven-speed sequential transmission from Williams. You know, the F1 team. While six are said to have been delivered to the Royal Family, four are accounted for in this leak including this bold yellow example.

However, the wildest Ferrari in the entire collection is this, the 288 GTO Evoluzione. Officially one of six cars, this was to be Ferrari’s entry in Group B rallying before the series was canned for being too deadly, too fast, too out-of-control.

Alright, that’s more than enough supercars, let’s move on to something truly jaw-dropping: The Bentley Silverstone. Specifically, some of the best photos we’ve ever had of the Bentley Silverstone. Several of these coachbuilt hardtop convertibles were made for the Royal Family, but nobody’s been able to get a truly clear rear three-quarter shot. Until now.

Wow, that’s certainly something. The most striking thing here is just how massive the trunk lid is. It’s huge! You could throw a picnic on its horizontal surface, complete with six different types of sandwiches and fancy biscuits. Oh, and if the Silverstone isn’t your kind of specialty Bentley, don’t worry. There’s a whole lot more where this came from.

Alright, what the hell is going on in here? This is the cabin of something badged as the Bentley Albatross 4WD, which looks pretty much identical to a Turbo R sedan except for the claim of four-wheel-drive. Anyway, I guess montage-of-golfers veneer fits with a green-and-white interior, but wow, what a surprise.

Anyway, I still have so many questions here. Is this thing actually all-wheel-drive? Did Bentley itself do the conversion? Did Bentley itself do the veneers? It’s just so gloriously weird, but rest assured, some of the other Bentleys in the collection make the Albatross look positively normal. Are you ready?

Say hello to the Bentley Imperial, a swoopy coachbuilt coupe based on the old, blocky Continental. Sure, the headlights look a little Buick and the gills look a bit Range Rover, but this really does feel like the missing link between the ’90s Continental and the Continental GT we know today. Crazier still, photos of this silver one just aren’t out there, so this really does feel like a glimpse of something new.

Oh, and this is a Bentley station wagon badged as a Big Mac, for obvious reasons. Yellow paint with a yellow-and-red interior is certainly a choice, but for what it’s worth, this Bentley estate looks properly coachbuilt. It feels like the sort of thing you could’ve bought from the showroom, which makes you wonder why Bentley didn’t offer it on a more than atelier basis.

Alright, time for another really weird one. This is the Aston Martin Vantage Special Series I, and while it’s based on the burly old Vantage of the ’90s, it adopts DB-like looks, albeit almost as a caricature. There are definitely some Mitsuoka-esque vibes going on here, but when you’re throwing around this much money, why not, right?

Actually, speaking of neoclassics, here’s a Clenet! With Italian walnut dashboards and crystal ashtrays, these machines stood for American excess during the golden age of nose beers and grot. Talk about a weird machine. Each one was built to order, and I bet these roadsters were interesting to drive, seeing as how most used an MG Midget tub for the passenger compartment, but perched atop a full-sized American luxury sedan’s mechanicals.

I must say, the Clenet is more elegant than the Di Napoli, one of possibly seven ever produced. These were essentially Buick Regals turned into neoclassics, and my word, were they ever weird. There isn’t much information out there on these things, but it’s both odd and weirdly unsurprising to see one in the Brunei collection.

On the other end of the spectrum, here’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s not some crazy coachbuilt creation rumored to cost seven figures in 1990s dollars, but instead just upper-middle-class family transportation for Americans in the 1990s. Obviously, this photo is old, but if not much has happened to this Grand Cherokee in the years since, it could be one of the lowest-mileage examples out there.

While we’re on the subject of cars in the Brunei collection that aren’t unobtanium, here’s an early Porsche Boxster. Not only is it on the base 16-inch wheels, it’s a Tiptronic automatic car, a rather weird spec. Also, this is the second car the greater Autopian fleet and the Royal Family’s collection have in common, which is certainly something.

Alright, back to insanity. This is a Dauer Porsche 962, one of several Dauer Porsche 962s in the Brunei collection. It’s essentially a sports prototype racing car, but with indicators and luggage space and side markers and all the stuff it needs to earn licence plates. Yes, this thing’s street-legal. Wild.

In a similar vein of insanity, here’s an Italdesign Nazca M12. Featuring a carbon tub, the V12 from a BMW 850i, and plenty of BMW switchgear, this was never technically more than a concept car, but yet, here’s an example. Weirdly, it’s not the only Italdesign Nazca M12 to somehow make it out of the ether — a blue one with a blue interior surfaced for sale more than a decade ago. Could they be the same car? It’s possible, but an extensive retrim would’ve been needed to go from the black leather interior seen in this photo set to the blue leather on the car that came up for sale in 2011.

Speaking of weird, how about a Hobbycar B612? Matter of fact, how about two? These amphibious four-seaters definitely made a splash at the 1992 Paris Motor Show, but they didn’t exactly shed their waterwings from a sales perspective. Only 52 were ever made, and at one point, three resided in Brunei.

While we’re talking about the collection, we need to bring up the litany of AMGs, such as this red-on-red W140 S-Class wagon conversion with a 7.2-liter V12. We saw a tribute car go up for auction earlier this year, but this is the real deal, a properly insane AMG wagon that’s just one of several in the Brunei collection.

If that’s not roomy enough for you, here’s an AMG van, specifically a pre-facelift T1N Sprinter decked out in all manner of AMG decor. This one pre-dates the first Sprinters to make it to America, and the existence of this in the Brunei collection offers compelling evidence that the wealthy have been using decked-out vans for a long, long time.

Another car of note is this rather stripey Bugatti EB 110 SS, one of four EB 110s in this photo set. Considering that only 139 of these were built, holding four of them is a considerable number, but this one’s more special than most. Not only does it sport a fantastic set of stripes, it has an absolutely insane interior. We’re talking full-on United Colors of Benetton in here.

Of course, given the age of these photos, it’s hard to pin down what still resides in the Royal Family’s collection, or what state they’re in. For instance, the gallery includes photos of McLaren F1 chassis number 060, which sold in 2017. However, with varying accounts of how functional the cars in the collection are, the fact that operational examples pop up for sale every now and then, and a handful of pretty moldy interiors in some of these photo sets, I wouldn’t be surprised if conditions vary. Still, for models that have been kept indoors, Brunei seems like a kinder environment to cars than the rust belt, so who knows? Maybe more of this collection will eventually surface.

(Photo credits: Instagram/stopthegatekeepingloris)

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